> OK. That is the confusion. I was viewing the ISP as being in the same
> administrative domain, at least that is true for most dialup ISPs.
I think that's a big stretch.
> In this
> case, the customer has a choice to change ISP if they don't like their
> policies.
I don't see how this matters. The typical customer doesn't know whether
the ISP is intercepting his traffic. All the customer knows is that his
internet phone application, or game or whatever, doesn't work. And he's
at least as likely to blame the vendor of the application as the ISP.
And it's not always the case that the customer has the ability to change
ISPs...it depends on where the customer is and how many ISPs serve that
area and how many of those otherwise provide the service that the customer
needs. When I travelled to Adelaide recently I was pretty much stuck
with the dialup service provided by my ISP (interception proxy and all)
because there was not enough time to find a better service.
Not all problems are solved by competition, especially where the ability
to make good decisions depends on knowledge of subtle technical issues.
Keith
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu Nov 18 2004 - 11:21:28 MST